Friday, February 06, 2015

Late one night, I was telling my friend
Sam that I had recently run into a panhandler who was deaf, and who
communicated via a stock message on a business-sized card. Having
someone wordlessly hand you a card was a strangely powerful
experience. Sam and I immediately started thinking of alternate
messages that could be conveyed with this new medium. Somehow, we
latched on to the idea of a total stranger using it to ask people to
tickle them. And it would be even funnier if English wasn't their
first language. This quickly evolved into a large, friendly
Norwegian man, asking to be tickled:

("Hello, My name is Olaf. I am recently from Norway and do not speak the English good. Please tickle me. Thank you.") The
idea was to walk
up to a total stranger and hand them
the card– without saying a
single word. The wordlessness is a crucial element. Your
initial communication with the person is solely
through the card – and your
friendly, hopeful facial expression.

We laughed until our
sides hurt.

Then, in classic Sam style, he insisted
that we go to Kinko's at once
– at 1 o'clock in the morning! – to have the
cards actually
printed. My
friend Mike Hanscom was working at
that Kinko's, and was
delighted to
oblige, chuckling
the whole time.

The
first run was 500 cards. We
burned through that one pretty quickly. The second run of
500 went
fast, too. The fad faded in
the middle of the third batch, but
a few stories stand out.

I have
almost never handed them to total strangers. Instead, I show them to
people whom I already know (or have just met), saying, “Pretend
like you don't know me, and I walk up to you without saying anything,
and I hand
you this card.” Since I
look faintly Scandinavian, and I've usually just met them, it's not
too much of a stretch – and it was a fun way to break the ice.

But
Sam actually
took a batch of cards
to Costco
to perform
a sociological experiment. (If
you don't know Sam, imagine a 6-foot-5 cross between Kyle MacLachlan
and Waldo from “Where's Waldo.” When
he walks up to you as a total
stranger and hands you an Olaf card, you're going to pay attention.
Sam handed
cards out
to people until the Costco folks asked him to leave. He
had enough datato
identify three major
categories of response:

85%
of people would laugh, take the card, and keep walking.

10-12%
would immediately turn and go without any response at all –
studiously making no eye
contact.

The
remaining 3-5% would look at Sam furtively, look down at the card,
look at Sam again … and then reach out very gingerly, tickle him
very briefly, and
then make a break for it.

Sam's
theory was that this last group was afraid of what he would do if
they didn't tickle him.

Sam
and I knew that we had struck some kind of chord when we took a road
trip to UAF and saw one taped to someone's dorm door – someone whom
neither of us knew.

The
largest distributor
was my friend Rod, who moved
to Tuscon and started handing
them out. He would go out dancing in
his vintage
green '70s leisure suit, giant afro wig, and big sunglasses
... and hand out Olaf
cards. He
went through an entire batch himself. For
many in Tucson,
Rod is “Olaf.”

Rod
was also
a dinner
captain at a very nice steak restaurant in Tucson. One night, Kevin
Spacey had been a
customer and was on his way
to the door when Rod
intercepted Spacey briefly and handed him an
Olaf card. As
Spacey was
walking away, out
of the corner of Rod's eye,
he saw
Spacey look down at the card, actually read it, chuckle,
and then put
it in his pocket. High
praise, indeed.

To
this day, every once in a while, I'll get a “hey, you're the guy
who
handed out the Olaf
cards!”

Late one night, I was telling my friend
Sam that I had recently run into a panhandler who was deaf, and who
communicated via a stock message on a business-sized card. Having
someone wordlessly hand you a card was a strangely powerful
experience. Sam and I immediately started thinking of alternate
messages that could be conveyed with this new medium. Somehow, we
latched on to the idea of a total stranger using it to ask people to
tickle them. And it would be even funnier if English wasn't their
first language. This quickly evolved into a large, friendly
Norwegian man, asking to be tickled:

("Hello, My name is Olaf. I am recently from Norway and do not speak the English good. Please tickle me. Thank you.") The
idea was to walk
up to a total stranger and hand them
the card– without saying a
single word. The wordlessness is a crucial element. Your
initial communication with the person is solely
through the card – and your
friendly, hopeful facial expression.

We laughed until our
sides hurt.

Then, in classic Sam style, he insisted
that we go to Kinko's at once
– at 1 o'clock in the morning! – to have the
cards actually
printed. My
friend Mike Hanscom was working at
that Kinko's, and was
delighted to
oblige, chuckling
the whole time.

The
first run was 500 cards. We
burned through that one pretty quickly. The second run of
500 went
fast, too. The fad faded in
the middle of the third batch, but
a few stories stand out.

I have
almost never handed them to total strangers. Instead, I show them to
people whom I already know (or have just met), saying, “Pretend
like you don't know me, and I walk up to you without saying anything,
and I hand
you this card.” Since I
look faintly Scandinavian, and I've usually just met them, it's not
too much of a stretch – and it was a fun way to break the ice.

But
Sam actually
took a batch of cards
to Costco
to perform
a sociological experiment. (If
you don't know Sam, imagine a 6-foot-5 cross between Kyle MacLachlan
and Waldo from “Where's Waldo.” When
he walks up to you as a total
stranger and hands you an Olaf card, you're going to pay attention.
Sam handed
cards out
to people until the Costco folks asked him to leave. He
had enough datato
identify three major
categories of response:

85%
of people would laugh, take the card, and keep walking.

10-12%
would immediately turn and go without any response at all –
studiously making no eye
contact.

The
remaining 3-5% would look at Sam furtively, look down at the card,
look at Sam again … and then reach out very gingerly, tickle him
very briefly, and
then make a break for it.

Sam's
theory was that this last group was afraid of what he would do if
they didn't tickle him.

Sam
and I knew that we had struck some kind of chord when we took a road
trip to UAF and saw one taped to someone's dorm door – someone whom
neither of us knew.

The
largest distributor
was my friend Rod, who moved
to Tuscon and started handing
them out. He would go out dancing in
his vintage
green '70s leisure suit, giant afro wig, and big sunglasses
... and hand out Olaf
cards. He
went through an entire batch himself. For
many in Tucson,
Rod is “Olaf.”

Rod
was also
a dinner
captain at a very nice steak restaurant in Tucson. One night, Kevin
Spacey had been a
customer and was on his way
to the door when Rod
intercepted Spacey briefly and handed him an
Olaf card. As
Spacey was
walking away, out
of the corner of Rod's eye,
he saw
Spacey look down at the card, actually read it, chuckle,
and then put
it in his pocket. High
praise, indeed.

To
this day, every once in a while, I'll get a “hey, you're the guy
who
handed out the Olaf
cards!”